Bayonetta, great game or too much?

[Kim]

I liked the combat in Bayonetta much more than Mirai did, but the game still left me feeling awkward and disappointed. The game has plenty of combos, but you'll usually end up spamming two or three because it's easier to and because there isn't something grading you in the top right corner. ("Cool, Badass, Awesome, Stylish" or whatever)

You have to collect records to get the weapons, rather than getting them from boss fights, so it's entirely possible to play through the game and miss the vast majority of the weapons. I certainly did.

Boss fights are massive and epic, and there are forgiving checkpoints, but it doesn't have the in your faceness of DMC3 boss fights. In DMC3, bosses were constantly in the fray, trying to fuck you up. It feels substantially less so in Bayonetta. The game is also substantially easier than DMC3.

There are Quicktime Events.

Nobody knows when to shut the goddamn hell up during cutscenes. They are practically Kojima levels of verbose, but half the time they don't actually convey any information. The antagonist, Baldur, is especially guilty of this and pretty much killed the plot, which reeks of Kingdom Hearts Nomura plot twist huuuuurgh.

The ending just drags on and on and on.

The sexualization is definitely a your mileage may vary kind of thing

With the bad out of the way, let me touch on the good...

Cereza is fuckin' adorable as hell and has the only good dialogue in the game.

The combat with regular enemies is ridiculously fun.

Being able to alchemy yourself up some healing items or items that boost your attack is a great idea.

The game is gorgeous.

There are some funny references to other games by them.

Walking on the walls and ceilings, as infrequently as you get to, is pretty awesome.

You can turn into a goddamn panther and that's cool.

Dodging can slow down time if you time it right and leads to a Viewtiful Joe style solution for taking out certain enemies.

In the end, I'd say the good outweighs the bad, and it's worth renting if you're into stylish action games, but I can't honestly recommend buying it unless you've already played it and really, really love it.